Games Inbox: What is the best multiplayer video game in 2026?

Are you still playing Marathon? (Sony Interactive Entertainment)

The Wednesday letters page tries to calculate how quickly GTA 6 will turn a profit, as a reader predicts there’ll be no such thing as PS6 exclusives.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email [email protected]

Next game
I think I’ve had enough of Marathon now. I’ve been playing it for the last few weeks and it’s just asking too much of me. I like the basic idea but the ugly graphics and the way it forces you to play in particular ways is putting me off. I’ve also bounced off of Arc Raiders recently, which also seems too much like hard work. I like extraction shooters, but I can’t play them all the time.

So I’m just wondering what multiplayer games other Inboxers are enjoying right now? I tried getting into Marvel Rivals but that was pretty overwhelming too. There’s so many characters, most of which I’ve never heard of, and then when you start a game it’s just a reskinned Overwatch. I get that it’s free, but I don’t think that excuses it.

I was thinking of trying to get into Rainbow Six Siege, but I’m worried that’ll be a bit too complicated and small-scale for me, although I do like the idea of playing as Solid Snake. Or maybe Warframe, that’s another one I always meant to try and never got round to. Interested to know what people think.
Iceman

Doing the numbers
Although that guy is clearly doing a new Spider-Man game (or being Spider-Man in a new game, if you want to be specific) I think it’s extremely unlikely that there’ll ever be such a thing as a PlayStation 6 exclusive.

You’ve got to figure two things: how few people are going to buy the new console, given how expensive it is, and how expensive it’s going to be to make games for the PlayStation 6. It’s going to be even more than it is currently and there’s going to be nowhere near enough people who own a PlayStation 6 to make it viable.

So you’re absolutely going to have cross-gen games at the start, just like PlayStation 5. And if they’re making the game now that’s going to include this new Spider-Man game. But I don’t think they’ll ever stop making cross-gen games. If the PlayStation 6 is even more expensive than the PlayStation 5 it’s never going to get a big enough of a userbase for the numbers to add up.
Zeiss

Not like this
A Bloodborne animated movie produced by a YouTuber who has no experience doing anything like that? Do Sony just straight up hate Bloodborne? The only time they don’t seem to be actively suppressing its memory they announce what sounds like an utter disaster of a movie.

I guess it might at least lead to a remaster or something but it’s a high cost to pay to see my favourite game dragged through the mud like this. FromSoftware seem so protective of their games and yet they agreed to this? I guess everyone has their price.
PhantomZ

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Mad cheap
There’s quite an interesting game free this week on Epic Games Store, from Thursday at 4pm. It is called The Stone Of Madness and it is made by The Game Kitchen, who made the well-reviewed Blasphemous 1 and 2 games, as well as the recently released Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound game, which also reviewed very well.

The Stone Of Madness is like the Mimimi Games like Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew and the old Commandos games, where you control five prisoners in a monastery trying to understand the mysteries of the monastery and trying to escape it. I’ve pre-ordered the game for PlayStation 5 from Limited Run Games, so will be waiting to play it that way.

Eurogamer gave the game an 8, but GameCentral and Edge Magazine missed reviewing it. But Edge magazine did an interesting preview of the game which got me interested in the game. Edge did say they were not sure about the status effects you get from the phobias and insanity but the game is free so you can find out for yourself this Thursday.
Andrew J.
Currently playing: Split Fiction (Xbox Series X) and Psychonauts 2 (PC)

Wasted success
I was thinking about what Animal Crossing is going to do too, given the popularity of Pokémon Pokopia. It’s not just that Nintendo has done nothing with the popularity of New Horizons, they almost seem to have tried to undermine it.

Why weren’t they trying to get the new game out in time for the 25th anniversary instead of having another game completely overshadow it? I’m sure the new Animal Crossing will still sell well but there’s no way it’s going to be the second-best selling game on Switch 2 or anything close to it. What a weird waste of all that momentum.
Dench

Pathway to profit
So I guess that Rockstar hack was interesting after all, huh? We all knew they were making money, hand over fist, from GTA Online, but who could’ve guessed a million a day! What makes me laugh is that only 4% of players pay anything at all, so who are these people that are gifting Rockstar so much money for doing virtually nothing?

I honestly don’t know, but if they’ve got that much money and so little sense, I wish they’d send some of it my way. With talk of GTA 6 costing $2 billion or more to make, they’ll make their money back within less than six years. Much less than that actually, because that doesn’t account for the price of the game itself.

Depending on what they charge for it they could be profitable within a year or two and then they’ve got another 13 years to sit back and rake it all in.

This is the sort of reason why companies don’t want to make double-A games or cut budgets or do any of the other sensible ideas people suggest. They don’t want to make a small profit, they want to make a Fortnite or GTA sized profit and nothing else. It really is all or nothing and the problem is it’s usually nothing.

Personally, I’m not that big a fan of GTA but as the letter the other day said, I’ll probably get GTA 6 anyway, just to check out what it’s like and see the graphics and open world. I can guarantee I won’t be spending a penny extra on the online mode though.
Clambake

The Big Shot
Disappointed to find out that Mouse: P.I. For Hire isn’t all that great but I did have concerns as to how it would work. The graphics look fantastic, but when I think film noir I don’t picture Humphrey Bogart gunning down hundreds of helpless henchmen.

I guess they just thought what kind of action would be going on in the ’30s and did that but I think that was a mistake. They should’ve gone for a more fantasy setting of some kind. I don’t see how you take seriously a cartoon version of mice playing at film noir, or why you’d want to even.
Focus

Reinvestment game
I agree that Capcom deserves a ton of credit for not only making Pragmata but also ploughing there money into both new games and revivals of old ones. Is Pragmata or the new Onimusha going to be mega hits? I severely doubt it, but they’ve made them anyway and I think you’ve got to respect that.

The reader the other day was right than all they’re interested in is your money but there’s going to be some interest in gaming for the sake of gaming to put your money into risky bets like those two.

But if you’ve got Resident Evil and Monster Hunter as guaranteed money makers than apparently that’s enough to keep things ticking over while you try something a bit different.

Imagine if other companies tried that. And I don’t mean obvious punchbags like Activision and EA. When was the last time Nintendo made a completely new franchise? You can argue things like Donkey Kong Banaza and that Princess Peach game are new but the last time they did something completely new was ARMS for the launch of the Switch 1 – and that was pretty obviously low budget.

Before that I think it was Splatoon, which is over a decade old at this point. They make smaller games that are new but they’re nothing like Capcom in terms of making a big budget game that’s not guaranteed to be a hit and just seeing how people take to it.

I’m very glad to see that attitude rewarded and I will be buying Pragmata based solely on that (well, and the demo).
Grando

Inbox also-rans
I love hair physics in games so was going to play Samson, but instead I drew a face on a mop and shook it around violently for a few hours.
Bll

I agree the new Xbox boss is making the right noises, but I just don’t see anyone buying a console from them again after all this. Why take the risk when the PlayStation is so reliable? I know I’ll never get another one.
Jett Syndrome

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The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.

You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.

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